


great minds think alike

by andawaywego



Category: Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: F/F, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Content, Some angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-16 06:00:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11247765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andawaywego/pseuds/andawaywego
Summary: "It’s not the transition he’s having problems with, though. It’s not, like, thoughts that he wishes he’d stayed dead or that he could have had enough time to move on or anything like that, really.He doesn’t even really put much stock into any part of it until he realizes that he’s sharing feelings with Trini.And by then, it’s sorta too late."[or: Billy and Trini try to get back to themselves the way they do everything--a little bit backwards]





	great minds think alike

**Author's Note:**

> heyyyy here's one of the many trimberly fics I started, but I actually finished this one.
> 
> as a warning, there is a...shared sexual-ish dream in here...and that might make you a little awkward but I promise it's nothing too bad.
> 
> also i posted this using the free mall wifi cause i'm shopping and i didn't super check for mistakes so apologies if there are any.
> 
> read on.

...

The thing is, Billy’s not even sure what it is at first that’s bothering him.

He knows the obvious part--the superpowers that are throwing his hormones all over the place, the fact that midterms are coming up, not to mention the whole dying thing. The whole coming back thing.

Alpha-5 says his body will learn to regulate the more physical changes--that he’ll build muscle easier and heal faster and all that great stuff that comes with being (not quite) bit by a radioactive spider. And midterms will be fine, he knows, because he’s been studying nonstop for a couple of weeks now and he was probably fine to take them  _ before  _ that. 

As far as the dying thing is concerned, the internet claims that it’s normal--that when you die for long enough to see a deceased loved on or be told to go into the light--returning to the “physical realm” can be jarring.

Billy doesn’t know about  _ that,  _ per se, but he had seen his dad in flashes, in tiny pictures like some sort of mind-movie dating all the way back to early childhood. It was sort of like a dream, though. The kind you don’t remember until after you’ve woken up, which is kinda cool when you think about it.

It’s not the transition he’s having problems with, though. It’s not, like, thoughts that he wishes he’d stayed dead or that he could have had enough time to move on or anything like that, really.

He doesn’t even really put much stock into any part of it until he realizes that he’s  _ sharing feelings _ with Trini.

And by then, it’s sorta too late.

.

He has nightmares of Rita pushing him into a wall for the first few nights after they win and it makes so little sense that he isn’t sure who he’s supposed to bring it up to.

If he’s supposed to bring it up at all.

He doesn’t really even think anything of it until his mother invites the others over for dinner and Trini spends too long lingering on a picture of him and his dad on the mantle, staring at it like she expects it to move like a picture in  _ Harry Potter _ .

“That your dad?” she asks, sounding like she already knows the answer.

And Billy nods. “Yeah,” he says.

But it’s not weird just then.

.

In fact, it’s not really weird  _ at all  _ until a week or so later.

He’s sitting in the McDonald’s one town over--because the one in Angel Grove had gotten smashed by Goldar’s foot two weeks prior--and Jason is going back up to the counter to ask for honey mustard for him because Billy asked him to and Jason doesn’t really know how to say no.

Normally, Billy wouldn’t take advantage of that fact but when it involves things like ordering food on his own, he absolutely does. Zack is sitting with him, sipping at his sweet tea and picking at what’s left of his fries and the girls are late. They were supposed to meet them ten minutes ago.

Well, they were all supposed to go together, actually, but Trini had said in their group chat that she was running late for one reason or another and Kimberly had replied that she’d pick her up and take her.

And yet--

It’s two weeks after that fight, after defeating Rita and beginning to move on with things and Billy thinks things are just about to go back to some semblance of normal when he feels it--this absolute rush of embarrassment threading through his veins and exploding up his neck.

It reminds him of the time in fourth grade when he’d tripped in the cafeteria and gotten mustard all over his white t-shirt. 

“You okay, dude?” Zack asks, perking up.

Billy doesn’t actually know the answer to that and is too busy wondering whether this is a delayed reaction to having had to repeat his order to the girl behind the counter ten minutes prior. But that doesn’t really make sense.

“Billy, are you alright?” Jason asks this as he slides into the booth beside him, pushing two packets of honey mustard towards his box of chicken nuggets. Billy throws him a look to show he’s listening, but is still too busy wondering if he’s having a heart attack to really answer. “What’s wrong?”

The door opens then, just past their booth, and Kimberly and Trini finally enter moving towards the counter after briefly waving. Kimberly shifts awkwardly in line as she looks up at the menu and Trini lingers behind her with her head down.

Looking pretty much the way Billy feels.

He frowns. “I’m okay,” he tells the other two, but neither of them appear to buy it. 

The girls don’t take long, but they do join them separately--Kimberly first and then Trini after her, a little slow and worn down like she’s tired. She’s blushing, too, Billy notices. 

She slides onto the seat on the other side of Jason and Kimberly sits next to Zack, both of them avoiding looking at each other or anyone else.

“What’s up with you two?” Zack asks, looking at the two of them. 

Kimberly glances over at him and then starts to eat her food, shrugging in response. 

Trini mumbles an unconvincing, “Nothin’.”

Jason frowns and watches them, but Billy gives him a look that he hopes conveys that he shouldn’t say anything. That he should just let this one go.

So they do.

The meal is awkward when it was supposed to be fun--a nice break from their usual rinse and repeat of training and then home to ice their wounds. Billy shuffles his feet on the floor and watches as Zack and Jason attempt to carry the conversation for everyone else’s sake. 

It’s a nice effort, if a little ineffective, especially once Zack starts talking about an app that lets you add cats to pictures and then  _ that  _ goes on for around twenty minutes.

Eventually Kimberly says she has homework and Trini asks Jason, at nearly the same time, if he’d mind giving her a lift home. No one else seems to think anything of this, but Billy can see the body language--that closed off way Trini is sitting and the way Kimberly is very carefully  _ not  _ looking at her.

Something happened.

Obviously.

Jason says, “Yeah, of course, Trin,” and relief floods through Billy’s system in such a rush that he’s certain the feeling is not his own. 

Kimberly asks Zack if he wants a lift since she lives closest to him and he seems to notice how weird it is, too, if the look he throws Trini’s way is anything to by.

Because Kimberly always gives Trini a ride home, but it’s usually up in the air for the others. Once everything became quiet again--after they’d buried the crystal in the center of town and then split the Megazord back into separate pieces at the mine and the town had begun to rebuild--the girls started to pair up, spending more time together outside their little group than Billy thinks any of the rest of them do.

He’s been chalking it up to female friendship, but the look on Trini’s face makes him rethink that for a moment.

Still, Zack says, “Sure, thanks,” and everyone gets up to leave.

Kimberly and Trini end up standing at the trash cans by the doors for a few minutes--Kimberly saying something in a quiet voice that Billy can’t really hear and Trini’s standing with her hands deep in her pockets.

And it’s only been a couple of weeks, really, but he thinks he knows them both pretty well considering the timeline he’s been given. Something is obviously wrong.

Trini is quiet in the car, watching Kimberly’s tail lights up ahead until she turns towards the trailer park on the edge of town. 

“That was weird,” Billy says after she gets out of the car at her house and plods up to the door, throwing an awkward wave back at Jason and him.

Jason looks at him as he backs out of the driveway and frowns. “What was?”

.

He wants to call her to see if she needs to talk, but ends up chickening out before it even rings once. 

He doesn’t end up texting her either.

Around midnight, when he’s lying awake in bed because he can’t sleep, he decides that he’s imagining things.

Trini is completely fine and he’s definitely not sharing her feelings.

.

But he might be sharing her dreams.

Because in the one he has that night he’s in Trini’s bedroom, pressed into the mattress with Rita dripping seawater onto his face and then the scene changes so quickly it’s sickening.

And he’s looking into the mirror. He reaches down--or  _ Trini  _ reaches down--and grasps the edges of the shirt she’s wearing, tugging it off and over her head.

There’s a noise behind him and when he turns, Kimberly is standing in the doorway, her car keys jingling in her hands and she looks embarrassed. Caught off guard.

_ I’m so sorry,  _ she says,  _ I-- _

And then she ducks out of the room.

When Billy wakes up, he’s pretty sure he knows what made the night before so weird.

.

He’s eating breakfast the next morning and contemplating this when it hits him--this rush of indignation that makes his heart thump painfully in his chest. He nearly falls out of his chair.

His mother takes his spilled bowl of cereal as a sign that he’s sick and presses the back of her hand to his forehead.

“I’m fine,” he says around a bite of toast, because  _ he  _ is.

Trini might not be.

There’s a honk from outside that’s probably Jason and it makes the two of them jump, her hand retreating to press into the countertop beside him.

“I gotta go, Mom,” he says.

She clicks her tongue. “I’d really rather you--”

But she can’t even finish because he’s already out the door.

.

“Why are you so jumpy?”

Billy likes Jason--likes the way he’s all soft edges when it comes to him now and how he asks this with so little hubris that Billy hardly even understands that he really wants an answer for a second. He nearly feels bad about it, about the way Jason looks at him now--like he’s half afraid Billy is going to stop breathing any second or he’s going to wake up and Billy will have never come back in the first place.

It’s the way the others look at him, too, but something in Jason’s eyes, or maybe his facial expression, tends to give him away a little bit more.

He sounds genuinely worried.

Billy follows him to his locker and stands there, scanning the corridor for Trini. He’s not really sure  _ why  _ he’s looking for her, only that he is. He’s not even really positive that he’s going to talk to her, because how do you bring up something like this?

Jason snaps his fingers in Billy’s face and Billy jumps, turning his eyes over to look at him.

“You’ve been weird since last night,” Jason tells him, sounding critical.

“Yeah, I have been,” Billy says. There’s no point in disagreeing. He sees Trini just ahead, coming in the front doors of the school and just sort of shuffling off towards where he thinks her locker is. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

And before Jason can protest or really look away from his locker to say  _ anything _ , Billy starts off after her.

.

“Are you okay?” he asks and it would be a normal enough question if he hadn’t followed her into the girls’ room to say it. 

There’s only one other girl in there and she’s fixing her makeup in the mirror. Billy thinks she was in his health class last year, but he can’t remember her name. He waves, but she just gives him a dirty look on her way out of the bathroom. 

“Billy?” 

He can see her feet under the stall, but she’s standing and when she opens the door, she’s swiping under her eyes with a piece of toilet paper she must have grabbed from inside. Her eyes are puffy and bloodshot and Billy surges forward just as the late bell rings, making both of them flinch.

“This is the girls’ room,” she says, moving past him to the sinks where she inspects her reflection with a frown.

“I know,” tells her, moving towards her and she looks up. “Are you okay? Were you crying? Did you get angry this morning?”

Trini is staring at him. Really staring.

He shifts, a little uncomfortable under her gaze. 

“Why?” she asks, eyes narrowed.

He swallows. “No reason.”

“Yeah,” she admits finally, crossing her arms. “My mom, she--”

She cuts herself off and doesn’t finish. 

Billy’s late for homeroom now, but he figures that doesn’t matter so much when you’re already in detention for the rest of the year, so he stands his ground. 

“Did Kimberly walk in on you changing yesterday?”

Everything stops at this and Billy very nearly regrets asking at all because of the way it makes  Trini shrink in on herself, makes her look smaller than ever. He’s not even really sure  _ why  _ he’s asking, just that he is and that it’s too late to take it back. 

He just has to know.

And, honestly, he’ll take the look on her face as confirmation.

.

“So, what?” Trini asks a little later. They’re hiding out until the end of homeroom and Billy is leaned back against the sink, looking at her. “You can... _ feel  _ me now?”

He shrugs. 

“Can you feel the others?”

Billy considers this, and the thing is, he’s not certain.

Before, after they got the coins, he was pretty sure he was at least a little more aware of how close Jason was standing to him or Kimberly passing by him in the crowded hallways between classes. And sometimes he can tell that Zack is coming up behind them on their way to training, walking sluggishly up the side of the mountain, but it wasn’t like this.

Because he can feel Trini’s confusion seeping its way into his skin and he knows it’s not his own. It feels alien, different. Like some foreign invader in his bloodstream and this hadn’t started until recently he thinks, though he might be able to trace it back further--to waking up in the ship and feeling Trini surge forward, her contentment and jubilation as she wrapped an arm around him. 

What it felt like when she’d been overrun by Putties moments before Kim lifted his Zord with her own to chuck him at Goldar.

That overwhelming resignation and terror as they’d pushed backwards towards the fire and then--

Relief when they’d lived, when they defeated Rita and Trini sent her flying into the exosphere.

He shrugs again. There’s not a good answer. At least, not one that won’t make him sound crazy. He says as much.

And then, “But, no...I don’t think so, no.”

Trini nods, seems to accept this and he can hear doors opening outside in the hall as the morning announcements click off. “So you can just feel  _ me  _ and you’re dreaming my memories?”

When you put it like  _ that _ \--

“Um,” Billy starts and shuffles his feet. “Yes.”

Trini pushes herself off the wall and heads towards the door, passing by him with a quizzical expression on her face. “What am I feeling right now?” she asks, but it doesn’t sound like she doesn’t necessarily believe him.

Just like she’s questioning something that’s sort of intrinsically unbelievable.

Billy doesn’t even really have to think of the answer. He doesn’t have to close his eyes or  _ hone  _ or anything. It’s simple.

He feels it so deeply, the hairs on his arms are standing up straight. “You’re nervous,” he says and Trini nods, sends him this little smile that’s just a basic curl of her lips.

“Yeah,” she says, but she doesn’t offer the  _ why  _ behind the emotion before she leaves.

.

Billy thinks he can deal with this. It’s not all  _ that  _ weird, though it’s definitely not normal, for sure. Neither is dying, he thinks. Neither is coming back to life.

Or the whole superpowers thing.

Trini, for her part, seems to be taking it in stride and Billy is able to ignore the boredom he thinks must be Trini when he’s sitting in study hall. It can’t be  _ him  _ because he’s focused on his AP Government study guide and she’s in Pre-Calc right now.

A class she complains about on the regular.

She nods at him in the hall before lunch and then again as she makes her way over to the cafeteria table they’ve all taken to sharing together. Jason is watching Billy. He can feel the heat of his stare on the side of his face and he knows that he only has so long before the inevitable, unanswered questions from earlier in the morning come back. Especially if Trini keeps glancing at him like that.

Things don’t get really weird until Kimberly arrives, though, coming in with her head hung low. Zack isn’t here, but he hasn’t shown up in a week or so--probably too scared of the last time he’d been present and the office threatened truancy.

And then mortification starts to trickle into Billy’s chest, making his ears feel hot and his legs feel numb. He throws a look at Trini who is looking away, probably remembering what happened the day before, but she doesn’t look up.

Lunch is silent.

Jason tries to carry the conversation for the rest of them, but he gives up after 10 minutes and then they just sort of settle into the awkwardness.

.

“I think I can feel you, too.”

Trini says it after lunch, tossing her tray into the stack of them by the front counter. 

Billy doesn’t look at her, afraid that doing so will scare her off for good.

“I’ve dreamt about your dad, I think,” she admits and Billy had suspected, but he hadn’t really wanted to know. “A couple of times. Did he read you the comics from the newspaper?”

And he  _ had _ . Billy had nearly forgotten.

He nods and the other two are coming up behind them. He can hear Jason asking about his and Kimberly’s English reading assignment. “Every Sunday,” he says.

And Trini just nods.

.

It’s not weird.

He tells himself that for the rest of the day. He dodges punches at training and doesn’t look at Trini and pretends not to wince in mutual pain when when a putty slams her into the ground and his back aches accordingly.

Kim helps her to her feet and, okay. Trini’s heart beats a little faster and Billy can feel it even though he attempts to swallow it down.

“You okay?” Kimberly is asking. “Been awhile since you took a hit that bad. You’re usually quick enough to dodge that kind of thing. And you’re sort of a tiny target.”

That’s not weird either.

Or, well, Billy tells himself it isn’t. It’s probably just some heightened Ranger senses. Like Spiderman.

Or something.

The others probably feel it, too, and just no one has said anything. If he tried to reach out right now and feel Jason’s heart pounding or match Zack’s breathing or something he could probably do it.

Billy tries. He even closes his eyes and... _ hones _ .

And...nothing.

Actually--

“Might be easier to concentrate if you didn’t wear such tight yoga pants, Princess.”

Billy less  _ says  _ this than  _ hears  _ himself say it. Because, for a moment, he doesn’t even realize he’s said  _ anything  _ until he opens his eyes back up and sees everyone staring at him with varying degrees of horror.

Jason’s face is bright red, Zack looks torn between laughing and crying, Kimberly looks downright flustered. Even Alpha-5 looks confused, if an android is  _ capable  _ of confusion. As for Trini--

Trini looks terrified.

Dismay is pouring off of her in waves and there’s a penetrating sense of longing that he can’t really pin down. His mind flashes briefly--

_ Are we Power Rangers? Or are we friends? _

The same look on her face then as is on her face now.

“Um,” Billy starts, but this throat feels dry all of a sudden--his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. “Uh, I mean.”

But he just kinda has to cut himself off after that because how do you explain something like that away?

And, okay. He lied. 

This is weird.

.

Trini can’t even look at him the rest of the time they’re down there and everyone else seems to mimic this tactic, Kimberly included. Billy feels terrible, guilty even and he wishes he had a good explanation for what this is but he comes up short every time he tries to figure anything beyond  _ Trini and I seem to be sharing some sort of hive-mind. _

Billy keeps his mouth closed tight for the rest of training--which is really only an hour because everyone seems eager to get away from him, as if he’s caught some sort of infectious disease that they’re all now worried he’s contagious.

Jason eventually says, “Okay, I think we’re good for the day,” and Kimberly hurries to her things and then up and away from the rest of them with a flaky wave and a quiet, insincere, “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

Billy can’t necessarily say that he blames her, but he also can’t really apologize on behalf of someone else’s thoughts.

Especially not because he’s pretty sure doing so would involve revealing that it was  _ Trini  _ who’d had those thoughts and--

If Kimberly avoiding him like the plague for the next few days is the price he has to pay in return for the safe-keeping of something like that, he’s willing to pay it.

Trini throws him a grateful look, as if to say,  _ Thanks for not outting me,  _ but Billy doesn’t know what facial expression would best accompany his,  _ I’ve got your back, but we need to to Zordon or  _ **_someone_ ** _ and figure out what’s going on _ thought process.

So he just nods.

“Do you need a ride home?” Jason asks him as he gathers his things, and Billy imagines himself cracking under the pressure of Jason’s inquisitive and quietly concerned stares during that long drive home. The answer is  _ yes  _ but he’s planning on grabbing Trini’s elbow before she can leave and maybe she’ll be nice enough to drop him off after. 

“No, thank you,” he says, and Jason hesitates just so for a moment before nodding and turning around.

Zack wiggles his eyebrows at Billy and says, “Wanna check out my ass on my way out, dude?” in a way that sounds like he’s only half-teasing.

Trini stiffens across the room, stops putting her things in her backpack and just kinda hunches there for a second before Zack and Jason disappear with a loud splash. Then she finally turns to him.

“We need to talk to Zordon,” she says before he gets the chance and, yeah.

Billy nods.

They really do.

.

“I have never heard of two Rangers sharing such a bond so early on,” is the answer they get from Zordon, which Billy thinks, basically, means he’s just as confused as they are. 

“Not  _ ever _ ?” Billy asks, stepping forward, closer to the wall and further away from Trini who is just kind of hovering towards the back of the room, looking ready to bolt. 

Zordon is still for a moment and then bubbles a little closer to Alpha-5 who is standing nearest to him. “All Rangers are connected by their coins to the morphing grid, and, through the morphing grid, to each other. As a team grows to know and understand one another, they become more attuned to one another’s senses and thoughts, feelings perhaps, as well. But the team Jason leads is young. It is unlikely that any of you could be so in tune with one another so quickly.”

“Unlikely or impossible?”

Trini sounds small, a little meek, and Billy turns to look at her.

Zordon is quiet for a moment. “Unlikely,” he repeats. 

“Okay, so we’re feeling each other’s emotions,” Billy cuts in, glancing between the two of them. “And thoughts?”

Trini meets his eyes and that look is all he needs to know that he’s assumed correctly.

“I am afraid I do not have an answer,” Zordon says, which is probably the least helpful and most frustrating thing he might have been able to say in that moment. Billy can feel Trini across the space between them--that slight hint of frustration and anger ebbing into his skin. “You feel things very deeply, Billy. You were the first of your team to morph and it was spurred on by your need to bring peace between Jason and Zack. It is possible that this is what is happening now.”

He thinks he knows what that’s supposed to mean, but it’s like he can’t quite get there.

“And Trini, you also have felt deeply for this team. Rita attempted to win you over and failed because of the loyalty you hold for the others. It is possible, I suppose, that you are coming together out of an equal understanding.”

“So, what?” Trini butts in. “We’re reading each other’s minds because Rita screwed us both over?”

Zordon is too slow to answer, too slow to defend himself in that moment and Alpha-5 steps in. 

“What Zordon is saying is that yours and Master Billy’s experiences with Rita were  _ unique _ . He laid down his life for the four of you, just as you were willing to do by betraying Rita’s plan.”

Billy frowns at the memory and wishes Trini would bridge the gap between them, if only so he’d have someone to hold onto. He doesn’t like to think about those moments in the water, thrashing to free his hands, to swim upwards, to get  _ back  _ to the others and then--

Nothing.

“It is possible that a sacrifice such as this has connected the two of you and made you more in tune with each other’s emotions.”

He says it like Billy is is some sort of savior, some sort of peacekeeper and Billy can’t help but feel humbled at that. And the thing is, he hasn’t felt anything like this for the others. Maybe short spurts of confusion from Jason today and an insignificant, casual thrill from Zack as he’d thrown himself over the edge of the cliff earlier.

“Earlier,” Billy starts, turning to look Trini in the eye, “when I said--” He cuts himself off because there’s no way he’s going to repeat it. Trini coughs into her fist. “--what were you feeling?”

She makes a face and presses her lips together, only opening them a minute later to say, “I don’t know, dude? Is humiliation an option?”

Billy doesn’t want to wonder at it--doesn’t want to think about her feeling that same emotion at that bonfire the night before they’d gone up against Rita. Doesn’t want to think about Trini not touching her fist to his in solidarity because she couldn’t bring herself to trust him.

“By the way, you planning on doing that again anytime soon? Cause I’m plannin’ on not being there.”

She was feeling his humiliation, he thinks, just as he felt her shock. Her  _ longing. _

Billy doesn’t know how to say that exactly He turns on his heels to exit, leaving Trini with no other option than to follow.

.

“Any chance this is gonna wear off?” she asks him and he remembers halfway to his house why one of the others usually drive them.

Because Trini apparently never learned what speed limits are and her car has no A/C which is sending the warm evening air whipping into his face through the windows. 

“I don’t know,” he says honestly because he  _ doesn’t _ .

There’s no telling.

He remembers his dad--the basic shape of him, the silhouette memory he’d seen when he was dead of his dad driving him to the mine with the sunset highlighting the sharp contour of his nose. 

Small prices, he thinks. 

Paying small prices is always better than paying big ones.

.

He can’t sleep again that night. He can still feel Trini burning across town.

So he texts her,  _ Go to sleep, please _ .

He wishes he had more than that--that he could reassure her that nothing would happen overnight, to her or Kim or any of them. They’ll be fine and they’ll sleep perfectly and wake up in the morning and everything. But he’s never been able to promise that sort of thing.

His dad couldn’t even promise that.

She answers twenty minutes later and just sends the peace sign emoji.

But somehow he can feel it--that sense of abatement that she sends his way without meaning to when he sends back a smiley face.

And then the connection falls silent and the only feelings he’s left with are his own.

.

He dreams about the Zord’s that night and Kimberly crying out somewhere above them.

Saying,  _ He’s crushing me!  _

And,  _ Can’t breathe, can’t breathe. _

Billy’s dreamt this before, but he usually sees Jason--feels the head of his Zord smashing into Billy’s own--or hears Zack gasping into their intercoms, losing consciousness.

But this isn’t his dream.

Because he’s always in his own body when he dreams and the inside of his Zord isn’t yellow.

.

“I can feel that you’re still upset.”

Trini looks half-asleep, but she turns her head enough that he can see her quirked eyebrow and then she goes back to gathering her things from her locker. “That must be fun for you.”

She  _ sounds  _ upset too, he thinks. He’s heard that tone from her endlessly.

“You know I didn’t mean what I said yesterday, right? About Kimberly?” he asks, because he has to know.

Trini sighs--this loud and long thing that doesn’t seem to be aimed at anyone but herself--and then she says, “Yeah, I know.”

“I only said it because you were thinking it really loud and I think I temporarily lost control of myself.”

“I know that, too.”

“I just don’t want you to think I think of her in that way,” he says. “Because I don’t. I know you have a crush on her.”

“Billy,” she cuts him off somehow with her tone, even though he hadn’t really been speaking, nor did he have any inclination to continue that particular train of thought. “Please don’t make me talk about that.”

“But you need to!” 

She closes her locker and starts off down the hall to her homeroom classroom slowly enough that he can follow closely, which is nice at least. Considerate.

“I really don’t. And the neverending slew of positive vibes you keep sending me is making me nauseous.”

“Nauseated,” Billy corrects.

She rolls her eyes. “Whatever.”

Billy shakes his head and dodges a couple of freshmen walking down the wrong side of the hallway. “Trini, you need to talk about this, because something is wrong, okay? That’s why we’re feeling each other like this. Something is wrong and we need to talk about it so we can fix whatever this is and I can go back to just feeling myself.”

She gives him a half-amused look that he doesn’t understand, but then she moves right on--shaking her head just once. And firmly, too.

“I promise, Billy,” she starts, “If I talk to Kim about this stuff, you’re gonna be feeling at least a hundred times worse than you already do because it’s gonna fuck everything up.”

He shoots her a look because Mr. Pigman is watching them closely from outside his classroom, arms crossed by the lockers, and he’s pretty sure getting into any more trouble is just going to give his mother a heart attack.

“I...I don’t have friends often, Billy, okay? I’m not gonna...screw this up over that. Because…” She trails off and swallows. “It’ll ruin it.”

“You can’t know that,” he tells her. “It could be fine. I think she likes you, too.”

“And  _ you  _ can’t know either of those things.”

Which is a fair point. Billy supposes he  _ can’t  _ really know that, after all. Kimberly Hart has been an enigma for as long as he’s known her, but as far as he’s always seen, she hasn’t readily doled out affection to people she didn’t deem worthy and Trini--in the short period of time he’s known her--has received way more than anyone else he’s ever seen Kimberly with.

As for the group, he doubts anything could really get in the way of destiny. Or, he’d like to think he doubts it. 

They’re at her homeroom now and Billy has about two minutes to get to his, which isn’t nearly enough time to form a good enough argument that Trini can’t back out.

He settles for saying, “Think about it,” and leaves it at that.

.

By the end of the day, things are pretty much normal again, but Billy hasn’t been sure for a little while what “normal” looks like for them now. After everything.

Today, he defines it as Kimberly and Trini laughing by their now-shared locker. Trini doing that open mouthed, full body laugh she only does on special occasions and usually only for Kimberly. 

They’re touching, too--Kimberly’s hand on Trini’s arm--and Billy watches them for a moment before Jason breaks in.

“They seem happier,” he comments and Billy nods.

They do.

“You’re not gonna hit on her again, right?” Jason asks and Billy smiles at him, at the easy way Jason is watching him as he stuffs his books into his backpack.

“No,” he says, and shakes his head.

Fortunately, Kimberly seems to understand that whatever happened was a fluke of some sort. He hopes one day that Trini will be able to tell her the full truth so that she can understand it better.

She waves at him as they approach, though, and that’s gotta mean something even if she stands a little farther away than she normally might have.

Jason is talking to them, laughing in that effortless way he’s been doing lately that Billy catches himself staring at too often.

“You’re really pretty,” Trini blurts out and it quiets Jason and Kimberly down immediately.

Billy feels his eyes get wide and then Trini looks at him like she needs a lifeline or something else he can’t offer her. 

This is nearly as bad as what he’d said to Kimberly the afternoon prior.

Jason swallows and frowns at Trini, throwing a glance at Kimberly who seems just as loss--if not  _ more _ \--as he does. “Um,” he says. “Thanks.”

Trini nods and hightails it out of there. 

And Billy hadn’t realized he’d been thinking about Jason like that--that he  _ ever  _ does--and there were probably a couple better moments to realize he  _ does  _ than through Trini’s accidental word-vomit.

He follows her.

It’s the least he can do.

.

“I mean, he  _ is  _ pretty, I guess, in a Disney prince kinda way,” Trini says on the side of the cliff a little later. Her face is less red and Billy takes that as a good sign. “But keep it to yourself, man.”

Billy frowns. “Fine, then keep your Kimberly thoughts to yourself.”

Trini looks over at him and they consider each other for a moment--listen to the tell-tale splash of Zack hitting the water and Kimberly laughing down below, saying, “Get  _ off,  _ Zack!”

“Deal,” she agrees and they shake on it, keeping their hands linked as they jump over the edge.

.

Training is still awkward though.

Kimberly avoids Billy and Jason avoids Trini and all four of them end up using Zack as some sort of conduit--passing him between sparring sessions until he’s a little bloodier than usual.

“What is with you guys today?” he asks eventually, letting Jason press a stack of gauze to his bleeding nose. “I gotta start going to school. You keep coming back from it all weird.”

Billy and Trini stand together a little ways away, on the farthest edge of the circle that’s formed around Zack, united against something neither of them has the ability to control.

.

That night, he dreams of Kimberly above him--knees planted on either side of his hips on his bed.

Except--

Not  _ his  _ bed. Trini’s bed.

He’s seen it once in the past couple of weeks--that time she’d invited them all over for take-out as an apology one day when her parents were gone, after she’d punched Zack a little too hard in the face during training--but he recognizes the walls, the window to his right, and the yellow bedsheets beneath him.

Fingers trail down his neck--not  _ his  _ neck.  _ Trini’s  _ neck. Because her skin is lighter, her body slighter and Kimberly is leaning down, her lips pressing to Trini’s ear and saying,  _ I love you,  _ in this breathy way that makes Billy wake up immediately.

And, yeah.

Basically, he’s done messing around after that.

.

He can’t look at either of them the next day. Can’t even really face the prospect so he fakes a migraine in second period and spends the rest of the day in the nurse’s office napping it off. Jason texts him a handful of times--worried questions about where he went.

He even gets the others to do it.

_ I know you’re not sick,  _ Trini sends around lunchtime.  _ I’d feel it if you were. _

Billy only responds to Zack.

It’s not that he’s angry, it’s that he doesn’t feel right talking to any of them--Trini especially--because his mind is still on the dream from the previous night.

He wonders what Trini saw--if she’s dreamt of water filling her lungs and darkness clouding her vision.

.

He doesn’t go to training that night. 

No, the nurse calls his mom and she picks him up in the (new) mini van and drives him straight home. He thinks he passes by the others on their way out of the parking lot--thinks he can see Trini and Kimberly walking a little too close towards Kimberly’s car--but he doesn’t turn his head to look.

For the first time since his dad died, Billy sleeps in the armchair his dad left behind in the living room and wonders for hours if maybe he’s feeling more of the others and less of himself because he’s too afraid to be left alone with his own emotions.

He wonders if it’s the same for Trini, too. If that’s why they feel each other so deeply.

.

“Billy! Your friend Didi is here!”

This wakes him up early--an hour before he has to leave for detention--and he shoots up in the recliner, ignoring the way it squeaks and groans under the sudden shift in weight.

“It’s Trini, Mom!” he calls back, still half-asleep and rubbing his eyes groggily as he yawns.

Puts down the leg rest.

Trini stumbles sheepishly into the living room a moment later, her hat tugged low over her ears and looking out of place against the polished wood of his mom’s china cabinet against the wall. “Hey,” she greets, eyes downcast.

He doesn’t know what to tell her, doesn’t have words for what he’s thinking but he can feel the uncertainty between them and it’s possible they’re both feeling it and that’s why it’s so strong.

“Thought you might want a ride,” she says.

Billy presses his palms into his knees and rocks forward a little without getting up. “Jason usually drives me,” he tells her.

She looks up at this. She’d known that already, but he wonders for a second if he said something else--like the Kimberly incident all over again. Something that’s hurt her feelings.

“Yeah,” she coughs. “I know, I just…”

This is the girl from the campfire, he thinks. This is the girl that ran away from them until Kimberly caught her and made her stop running. This is his teammate who he died for and would die for again if he had to.

Who would die for him.

He gets to his feet.

“I’m scared of dying again,” he says, so swiftly that he doesn’t even have the chance to back down before the words are filling the space between them.

He can hear his mom rattling around in the kitchen, gathering her things for work.

Trini’s head turns upwards, her eyes finding his, and her mouth drops open. She wasn’t expecting that.

“I’m scared that Rita is going to come back and she’s going to kill me and Zordon won’t be able to bring me back,” he continues, clenching his fists to keep his hands from shaking. “I’m scared of losing all of you the way you nearly lost me. I’m terrified of it. And...I don’t understand why you guys...I don’t know why you cared.”

It’s these final words that spring Trini into motion. She steps forward and reaches out, grabbing his wrist loosely enough that he still has the option to pull away. “Because we love you, Billy,” she says with such certainty, Billy feels more grounded than he has in months.

In years, maybe.

“You…” She looks away, but she doesn’t let go of his wrist. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t come back. I don’t think we would have won.” She’s quiet for a moment and then, “I don’t think we would have wanted to.”

And he doesn’t understand, but this is the first time he’s found the strength to really talk about what this means for him, for all of them. How it changes things.

“I screw everything up,” Trini continues after a moment, her voice dropping down to a whisper. “I...I’m scared of losing you guys, too. All of you. I’m scared of losing me because...for a moment, I wanted to go with Rita when she offered...I wanted…” She trails off shakily. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” 

Billy reaches out with his free hand and nudges her chin up with his finger so that she’s looking at him again. “Is there something wrong with me?” he asks and Trini seems taken aback by this, eager to shake her head. He smiles. “There’s nothing wrong with you either. She offered you an out and you were vulnerable. You didn’t take it. You helped us beat her. You’re okay.  _ We’re  _ okay. Both of us are.”

They stand there for a moment, her small fingers still wrapped around his wrist and then Billy’s mom calls out a, “You’ll be late if you don’t leave soon!” as she leaves the house and it startles them back into motion.

“We should go,” Trini says, sounding suspiciously like she’s on the verge of tears.

“Can I get different pants?” he asks, trying to break up the tension. “I don’t think Mr. Dettweiler would appreciate me wearing my pajamas.”

Trini looks up finally and then down again, this time to inspect his plaid pants. She smiles. “Please,” she says. “You look ridiculous.”

And they’re both smiling. That’s how he knows she doesn’t mean it.

.

“We’re both, by the way,” he says when they pull into the parking lot. 

Trini parks her car and then throws him a confused look that he doesn’t feel. She doesn’t ask.

He doesn’t give her time to.

“We’re still Power Rangers,” he tells her. “But we’re friends first.”

The softness in her eyes, in the way her lips turn up a little, says  _ wonder  _ but it’s his own that he’s feeling.

He’s sure of it.

.

“You seem better,” Jason tells him in his truck that afternoon.

Billy glances over at him. They’re at a stop light, on their way to the mine and Kimberly and Trini are driving behind them. If he tilts his head and looks in the side-mirror he can see them, laughing. Can see Kimberly singing along with the radio and Trini watching her in wonder.

He thinks he can still feel her, maybe. If he tries. He can feel that sort of dazed buzzing that he’s begun to associate with her interactions with Kimberly, but it could just as readily be his own.

“I’m okay,” Billy says and means it. He watches Jason’s profile against the afternoon sun and he can make new memories without rewriting the old ones.

He can remember dying and coming back and everything before and after and still find the strength to move his feet forward.

And if  _ he  _ can do that, he’s pretty sure Trini can, too.

He’ll help her if he has to.

.

It only takes a few more days. A few more days of Trini smiling a little more and Billy feeling a little less of her each time.

They don’t tell the others. He doesn’t think it’s important. Not right now, anyway, but he wonders at telling Jason maybe. Doesn’t know what his reaction would be.

Zack, he thinks, might understand better than any of the rest of them. He might look at Billy and say something about feeling them all anyway. Because sometimes Billy is certain he  _ can _ \--that they all can, and it’s just that he’s become aware of it now. 

They’ll figure it out eventually, if what Zordon said comes to be true. And then it’ll all come out anyway.

They’re lying out at the mine, in the softest patch of dirt they can find and Jason brought food for them--some sort of reward for never having a day off, perhaps. Kimberly had an entire pack of  _ Ice Mountain  _ bottled water in her trunk because she’s picky and it’s not sold anywhere nearby apparently.

She shares it with them.

And Zack has blankets hidden away in that train car of his and he fetches them so he can lay them out, so they can sit and watch the sun set in the distance like everything is normal for them. Like it’s a regular Friday night for five teenagers who are only one half of that promise he’d made Trini.

Just friends.

It feels like he’s playing a role and Billy doesn’t like it. Has to remind himself every few seconds that this isn’t all he is. That he can feel all of these other kids if he tries. He can feel Jason, calm and collected beside him and Zack just as serene.

It’s a romantic night. Billy doesn’t have a lot of experience with those kinds of nights, but everyone is quiet with the promise of not know where they’re heading yet. He thinks Zack might actually be asleep now and Jason is getting there, his eyes blinking drowsily and his shoulder leaning into Billy’s more than it normally might.

He glances back at Trini and Kimberly, who are sitting on a separate blanket behind them. For a while, he’d been able to hear the soft cadence of a private conversation without being able to discern what it was about. Now, they’ve grown silent and when he looks at them, Kimberly has her cheek pressed to the top of Trini’s head and their hands are tangled together between them.

It probably isn’t fair to let them get together like this. Billy is pretty sure they deserve more privacy than he has the power to provide just then, but he’s not sure it’s his place to stop it either.

And honestly, he’s been waiting for this to happen even if he’d only just noticed how much he was holding his breath for it over the past week or so.

He watches out of the corner of his eye as Kimberly presses her lips to the top of Trini’s hat and then as Trini pulls away and lifts her head. They just stare at each other for what feels like forever and Billy is certain they don’t see him watching.

Otherwise, there’s no way they’d lean in like that, eyes closed already.

He looks away when their lips meet and pretends he doesn’t feel the way Trini’s heart speeds up--the way his own accelerates to match--when they rearrange, shuffle the blanket against the dirt, probably trying to get closer.

.

It doesn’t really go away.

Billy isn’t really sure he expected it too, but it does fade into the background. It gets stronger with the others, as well, but none of the connections feel nearly as strong as his with Trini does.

“What about you and Kimberly?” he asks one night when she’s lying on his bed beside him.

It’s late when he asks, and his window is open to the chill October night because Trini never closes it behind herself. She adjusts herself on his bed and he thinks he can feel her thinking this over--that calculating hum in her head. 

He’s half-asleep still and he’d had that nightmare again--water in his lungs and his hands tied in front of him. Trini must have had it too, he thinks, or she wouldn’t have snuck across town to him, but she hasn’t said anything.

“It’s strong,” she says, and he doesn’t ask for details. He can imagine why she’d know something like that without anything further. “Not  _ as  _ strong, but getting there, I think. Maybe we’re just getting the feel for it. She’s sleeping right now.”

Billy closes his eyes and reaches out, probing the town for Kimberly and lets out a little breath when he finds her, feels her, dreaming peacefully. He can practically see her curled into the blankets on her bed, chest rising and falling steadily with each breath.

Trini’s right. It’s shifting, changing. Rearranging to include the other three.

But not going away.

He smiles, says, “Yeah. Jason is, too. Zack’s awake.”

Trini nods, says, “He always is,” and curls her hands into his blankets.

He understands that it’s her way of asking for permission and he touches the back of her hand with his fingers. 

“There are worse people to have read my mind, I guess,” she concedes and Billy laughs.

Wonders if Kimberly would have so readily forgiven  _ Zack  _ for saying what he’d accidentally said about her that one day. He doesn’t think the odds are good.

No, it doesn’t really go away.

But, small prices are the easiest to pay and Billy’s pretty sure Trini would gladly front him the money if he ever came up short.

...

**Author's Note:**

> if you're currently waiting for the sequel to "you gotta fix yourself up (before taking off)" I have high hopes to finish it tomorrow. sorry I'm Awful.
> 
> come yell at me on [tumblr](http://housewithoutwindows.tumblr.com) if you want.
> 
> thanks for reading.


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